Abstract

While mobile marketers have devoted increased marketing efforts to promote their apps, little is known about the effectiveness of mobile marketing strategies on consumers’ adoption of branded apps. This study investigates whether two mobile in-app marketing strategies in-app couponing and in-app group-couponingimpact consumer adoption and how social influences from both existing adopters and people in a physical environment strengthen or weaken the effectiveness of these two strategies. Based on a proprietary data collected from a large Chinese shopping mall, this study analyzed both daily aggregate adoption data across eight months and daily individual adoption data of 1,908,082 consumers. Surprisingly, our results showed that while both in-app couponing and group-couponing are two various couponing strategies, their impacts on consumers’ adoption of branded apps are opposite. Specifically, we found that while the likelihood of consumer adoption was positively associated with the frequent use of in-app group-coupons, it was negatively associated with the frequent use of in-app coupons. Interestingly, this study also revealed opposite moderating effects of social interactions from existing adopters and from people in a physical environment. These findings imply that the impacts of two in-app marketing strategies are not constant but dynamic with the increase in the number of adopters and the crowdedness of a physical environment.

Keyword

Mobile App Adoption ;  Branded Apps ;  Mobile In-App Marketing Strategy ;  Mobile Group Coupon ;  Mobile Coupon ;  Social Influence

Abstract

While introducing refurbished products has become a prevalent practice for sustainability, little is known about whether and when such an environmentally sustainable strategy is sustainable (i.e., profitable) for manufacturers. Given the fact that refurbished products are remanufactured from product returns, introducing refurbished products can create a negative connotation of poor product quality, thereby imposing challenges on the corresponding brand-new products. The authors conduct an empirical study and four experimental studies to investigate the conditions under which introducing refurbished products increases or decreases consumers’ purchase intentions and valuations of the brand-new counterparts in markets with network effects and standards competition. These studies consistently reveal that the availability of refurbished products can positively affect consumers’ evaluations of brand-new products that employ a new technology standard, given that the sales of refurbished products increase the installed user base of the new technology standard and lead to strong positive network effects. However, for products that employ an established standard, these studies show that introducing refurbished products reduces consumers’ purchase intentions and valuations of the brand-new counterparts. These findings provide important implications for this green product strategy.

Keyword

green product strategy ;  network effects ;  quality connotation ;  refurbished products ;  standards competition ;  Sustainability

Abstract

This paper investigates whether and how emerging markets reward firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. We focus on the socially responsible investment (SRI) index, which lists the top CSR performers and serves as a tool to help investors make investment decisions based on financial and social criteria. We empirically test the financial market responses to the announcements of pioneering SRI indices recently launched in Brazil, China, and South Africa. We find that inclusion on an SRI index in these markets is associated with positive abnormal returns. However, inclusion on an SRI index does not benefit all firms equally: the positive financial response is strengthened by R&D expenditures but weakened by advertising expenditures; it is stronger for firms that have expanded globally to developing countries than those to developed countries. Rajendra Srivastava and V. Kumar served as Special Issue Guest Editors for this article.

Keyword

Corporate social responsibility ;  Emerging markets ;  Event study ;  Socially responsible investment index

Abstract

This study investigates a novel mechanism—multiple‐winner award rules—that are widely used in e‐procurement auctions and crowdsourcing sites. In many e‐procurement auctions, the auctioneer (i.e., the buyer) specifies three rules before the auction starts: (i) the size of the finalist set (from which the winner[s] will be chosen); (ii) the number of winners; and (iii) the allocation of the contract among the winners. We examine how these three rules affect auction performance using a dataset of online procurement auctions across a variety of product categories. We find that the multiple‐winner award rules significantly impact the suppliers’ participation decisions, which is an important factor in determining the economic performance of the auction (i.e., buyer's savings). Most interestingly, these three rules systematically induce opposite effects on auction participation for two types of suppliers: experienced and inexperienced bidders. For example, increasing the number of winners encourages experienced suppliers, but discourages inexperienced suppliers from participating in the auction. On the other hand, raising the disparity in the contract allocation among winning bidders (e.g., from 50/50 to 90/10 split) deters experienced suppliers, but motivates inexperienced suppliers to participate. These findings provide guidelines for industrial buyers and crowdsourcing hosts on how to effectively make use of multiple‐winner design levers to promote suppliers’ participation when designing procurement auctions and crowdsourcing contests.

Keyword

auction desig ;  award allocation ;  industrial procurement ;  multiple winners ;  online auctions